Irreversible

I honestly don’t even know what to say. I had no clue what I was walking into, and honestly, even if I did, I think it still would’ve impacted me the same way. The way Gaspar Noé directs is honestly incredible. The opening of this film is some of the best filmmaking I’ve seen in a while. The entire club sequence is completely hypnotizing. The lights, the constantly spinning camera, the overwhelming atmosphere—it all feels perfect. Even the color palette works so well because everything feels difficult to fully make out, which only adds to the confusion, tension, and unease. And then there’s that scene. It’s genuinely disgusting and incredibly hard to sit through, but that’s exactly why it works. It’s one of those moments that nobody wants to watch, but to fully understand the horror and emotional devastation of it, you almost need the film to force you to sit there with it. The long take and the acting make everything feel unbearably real, to the point where it honestly makes you feel sick to your stomach. What surprised me most, though, is how sad the film actually is. Beneath all the brutality and chaos, there’s something deeply tragic about it. By the ending, I almost started tearing up. Knowing everything that’s going to happen while watching those final moments makes the movie emotionally gut-wrenching in the best and worst way possible. After watching both Climax and this, I honestly think Gaspar Noé has already become one of my favorite directors, maybe even my number one. At this point, I’m probably running through the rest of his filmography just to see how insane this man really is. “Time destroys everything.”